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San Diego Comic-Con: Big News for the Small Screen

San Diego Comic-Con: Big News for the Small Screen

This year’s Comic-Con is now behind us, and while those of us who were there rest our weary legs and get caught up on some much-needed sleep, DC fans the world over are buzzing with excitement over the amazing news and announcements that broke over the weekend. By now, you’ve seen the spectacular Justice League trailer and caught up on all of the movie announcements, heard the news about Batman: The Telltale Series’ second season, debated which of DARK NIGHTS: METAL’s six evil Batmen you’d least like to meet in a dark alley, speculated about Frank Miller’s just announced SUPERMAN: YEAR ONE, debated whether you’re more excited about Batman: Gotham by Gaslight or Death of Superman and seen the clip of the young Wonder Woman fan meeting Gal Gadot.

But you know what Comic-Con news we haven’t discussed nearly enough here on DCComics.com? The myriad of announcements made about your favorite #DCTV shows. So let’s fix that, shall we? Let’s look at all of DC’s small screen news that broke over the big weekend.

Young Justice

It’s one of the most anticipated #DCTV shows in years and helped to kick off San Diego Comic-Con’s second day with a lively panel featuring producers Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti along with art director Phil Bourassa, who discussed the long road to bringing the fan-favorite animated series back for a third season with next year’s Young Justice: Outsiders. In the process, they revealed that Outsiders will begin after a time jump, like we saw between the first two seasons. They also debuted a new image showing off a slightly updated cast and look.

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Yes, that’s Spoiler in the center, along with fellow new character Thirteen, positioned to the right of Blue Beetle. With Young Justice: Outsiders slated to debut on DC’s digital service in the future, details on the full storyline are scarce, though producers promise a darker edge to the season, which deals with metahuman trafficking.

iZombie

A bit later on Friday, the cast and producers of iZombie gathered for an anything-but-dead panel that made great use of Season 3’s “Killer Abs” t-shirt and offered glimpses of what lies ahead in Season 4. The takeaway? The fallout from last season’s discovery of zombies by the world at large has opened the door to all kinds of stories iZombie just couldn’t tell before. With a zombie now running Seattle, the city becomes something of a sanctuary city for the undead, with a flood of zombie immigrants taking up residents there and a variety of opinions on how best to handle the phenomenon emerging among humans and zombies alike. Also, Liv will get a new love interest and actor Robert Knepper, who plays Blaine’s father Angus, has been promoted to series regular next season.

All this, and the show released a pretty darn funny highlight reel from last season.

Preacher

The hit AMC series’ Comic-Con panel was almost as wild as the show (and Vertigo comic it’s based on) itself, featuring the show’s cast and executive producer Seth Rogen. It started with a brand new trailer for the current season and only got wilder from there.

For fans of the comic book, the big news is likely to be that they can expect to see much more of it adapted in Season 2. Already, we’ve gotten the brutal Saint of Killers, and as you can see in the trailer, future episodes also offer much more of Herr Starr and The Grail. (Can the Allfather be far behind? We’re both excited at the prospect and very, very scared.) On the panel, Dominic Cooper teased that we’ll also be learning more about Jesse’s childhood…which was an early high point in the comic series and something that fans likely know well.

Krypton

Syfy released a brief, but enticing, teaser for DC’s newest cable series on Thursday…

However, for Superman fans, the truly great stuff was saved for Saturday’s panel, which was hosted by DC Entertainment President and Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns. While Krypton is a prequel to Superman’s story—it focuses largely on Kal-El’s grandfather—it has a tie to the present day. In today’s world, a conspiracy is hatched to prevent Superman from ever being born, with the conspirators traveling back in time two generations to Krypton. In addition, the show promises to dive deep into Superman’s comic book mythos, with popular DC characters and elements such as Adam Strange, Brainiac, Doomsday, the Black Mercy, House of Zod and more.

Lucifer

Don’t worry, Tricia Helfer fans! At the panel for the hit Vertigo comic adaptation, it was revealed that she’ll be staying on this season—this time in the role of Charlotte, the attorney Lucifer’s mother took control of last season.

Unfortunately, Charlotte was nowhere to be seen in the Lucifer Season 3 trailer that premiered at Comic-Con, but we did get to see some very different sides of our characters.

The big news, however, was that actor Tom Welling, beloved by DC fans for his earlier role as Clark Kent on Smallville, will be joining the cast as Marcus Pierce, a police lieutenant who is likely to function as something of a rival for Lucifer, seeing how Marcus is just about everything he’s not. Marcus is strategic, patient and reserved, and also seems to have quite a rapport with Chloe…

Something tells us this one could get messy!

No word yet on how Lucifer got his wings back, but we should hopefully learn that when the series returns in the fall.

Gotham

The cast of Gotham is expanding as well, as Teen Wolf’s Crystal Reed enters the story in Season 4 as Sofia Falcone, who returns to Gotham after a decade of running her family’s operation in the south. Unfortunately, Sofia isn’t seen in the exciting highlight reel/trailer that was shown during Gotham’s Comic-Con panel, but plenty of great stuff was, including a brief glimpse of what appears to be the Iceberg Lounge’s opening, both Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle kicking some street thug butt and the long-awaited return of the Scarecrow.

Supergirl

“Kara Danvers was a mistake.”

Hearing Supergirl deliver that line in the truly intense Supergirl Season 3 trailer that debuted as part of the show’s Comic-Con panel gave the roomful of fans absolute chills, as did the trailer’s markedly different change in tone.

As you can see, the sneak peek also gave us our first glimpse of Odette Annable’s Reign, who promises to be Supergirl’s chief adversary this season. It also gave us a look at Adrian Pasdar (Heroes), who joins the show this season as longtime comic book baddie Morgan Edge.

Pasdar was just one of the new Supergirl casting announcements made this weekend. You can also look for Jane the Virgin’s Yael Grobglas as classic Supergirl villain, Psi, who uses people’s minds against them. Young actress Emma Tremblay (Elysium) shows up as a girl named Ruby who harbors a fascination with the Girl of Steel. However, the news likely to resonate most with DC fans is the announcement that Carl Lumbly will play M’yrnn J’onzz, the father of J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter. Lumbly knows the J’onzz clan well, having also voiced J’onn on both Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. As the pacifist religious leader M’yrnn, Lumbly will likely help build out J’onzz history and backstory more significantly on the show.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow’s casting news was all about bringing back some favorites rather than introducing new ones. Along with debuting a lively, funny trailer for the show’s upcoming third season, Warner Bros. Television announced that Arthur Darvill and Wentworth Miller will be returning to their roles as Rip Hunter and Captain Cold, respectively, as recurring guest stars. At the same time, Neal McDonough will once again embody the smug Damien Darhk as a series regular.

Also, you did catch that Kuasa, reference, didn’t you? Fans of the in-continuity Vixen animated series should understand her importance.

Black Lightning

Sadly, the newest #DCTV show to join The CW’s lineup didn’t debut a new trailer (though its previously released one got regular play within the DC booth), but it did break some casting news.

First and foremost was the announcement that acclaimed actor James Remar (Dexter, Django Unchained, The Warriors and recently seen on Gotham) as Peter Gambi, the oldest friend of Jefferson Pierce. Gambi is Jefferson’s father figure, mentor and “tailor.” His history with Jefferson goes back farther and deeper than anyone knows, and Gambi’s role in Jefferson’s life will become a painful window into the past that will affect the future of their relationship forever.

If you’re familiar with Gambi and Black Lightning’s history in the comics, you may have an idea what that “painful window into the past” may be alluding to.

Also announced was that Bates Motel’s Damon Gupton will be playing Inspector Henderson, a high ranking detective that becomes an unlikely ally of Black Lightning despite his role in the community putting him at odds with the vigilante.

The Flash

The appropriately fast-paced peek at The Flash’s upcoming fourth season gave us a…well, peek at the return of Britne Oldford’s Peek-a-Boo, a strong-but-grieving Iris West and a once again heroic Caitlin Snow. (Though actress Danielle Panabaker promised that fans of both Caitlin Snow and Killer Frost will be pleased this season.)

However, the trailer didn’t include next season’s central villain, Clifford Devoe, better known to DC fans as the Thinker. Played by The 100’s Neil Sandilands, Devoe is a metahuman with a mega mind who embarks on a season-long battle with the Scarlet Speedster that pits the “fastest man alive” against the “fastest mind alive.” A true genius, he’s devised an intricate plan to fix all that he deems wrong with humanity.

To help with this, it turns out the Thinker has a partner-in-crime—a character known only as the Mechanic and played by Kim Engelbrecht (Dominion). The Mechanic is a highly intelligent engineer who designs devices for Devoe. As Devoe’s right hand, she’s the truest of true believers who’ll stop at nothing to help him implement his plan to fix humanity.

Finally, and perhaps most surprising, was the announcement than none other than Danny Trejo—yes, of Machete, From Dusk Till Dawn and Sons of Anarchy fame—will be playing the new role of Breacher, a feared bounty hunter from Earth-19 and the imposing father to inter-dimensional bounty hunter, Gypsy. His mission is to prevent any inter-dimensional traveler from threatening life on his planet—especially his daughter’s.

Poor Cisco. As if meeting your girlfriend’s father for the first time isn’t stressful enough!

Arrow

After five successful seasons, Arrow knows how to stage a successful Comic-Con panel, and this was no exception. Like most of the other panels, it began with a look at the upcoming season…which did NOT reveal the fates of most of the characters. Though if you’re a fan of the show’s famous fight scenes, you won’t be disappointed.

Details regarding next season’s adversary (or adversaries) were slight, but it was announced that Emmy-winning actor Michael Emerson (Person of Interest, Lost) will be playing a mystery villain next season. In addition, the surprisingly rich relationship between Oliver and David Nykl’s Anatoly Knyazev will enter a new chapter next season as the character is slated to return. So is Manu Bennett’s Slade Wilson along with other elements introduced last season, such as Helix and Vigilante.

Freedom Fighters: The Ray

Finally, fans got their first look at DC’s next original digital series, Freedom Fighters: The Ray, with a sneak peek that included our first glimpse of the show’s nightmarish alternate world. The first super hero show to feature a gay hero in the title role, the animated Freedom Fighters: The Ray also features Ray Terrill’s Freedom Fighter allies, including Red Tornado and Black Condor, and his enemies—evil versions of the Flash, Supergirl and Green Arrow.

There you have it! Everything #DCTV that was announced and revealed at Comic-Con in one handy dandy post! We don’t know about you, but our DVRs are going to get quite the workout next season. Which show has you the most excited? Let us know below, along with your theories on what Barry Allen has been up to hanging out in the Speed Force all summer. Do you think they have beach parties there?